Camaraderie -Postscript

Wow! The response I received from yesterday's post was amazing. I put out a bit of an open-door piece on personal feelings as a writer and I received such a supportive and candid set of responses I feel it necessary to keep the energy moving.

Before I dive into my thoughts for today, thank you all for being part of this. I enjoyed reading how many of you have experienced similar shifts in friends and social/work life over the years. It was fascinating to hear how some of you managed these shifts and how some of you continue to struggle.

Here is my take on yesterday's post.There is no such thing as a proximity friend. We are either friends or we are not friends. My frustration in this situation was much more with myself for being a poor judge of character. I take pride in my listening skills and my propensity for empathy. When I am wrong about someone it forces me to go back down the line of interactions and wonder where I stumbled. Usually I find I ignored a sign because I wanted the friendship or the job, in some cases more than I was willing to listen to the truth in my head.

I am not a hermit by any stretch of the imagination. My use of the word madness may have been a bit strong for such a serious piece. I used the term madness to express humor in my self-imposed isolation. Currently, I am teaching myself a level of discipline I have not had to possess in my life. I have chosen jobs at will and worked myself into the ground doing work for other people until a level of burnout then I would quit and try something new. Working for myself and creating a path into the darkest part of the forest requires the isolation I have self-prescribed. I am in this for ostensibly the rest of my life so I need a pace that will sustain itself. Having no forced work hours, no boss, and only loose deadlines makes self discipline paramount.

My hero, Joseph Campbell, went into the woods near Woodstock, NY and read alone for almost 5 years before he emerged. While I am not suggesting I go to that extreme I am easily distracted by human interaction and human observation. At this point in my life it is a struggle to be without it and yes, to take many of my readers' advice, I should get out to a coffee shop once in a while just to break the day. However, what I was suggesting I want was a bit of a pie in the sky scenario.

I would like to be in the company of like-minded friends and colleagues. I would love to put a few of my fellow bloggers in a wondrous writing space with me each day so that we could create and also interact. In essence, I want to be a writer on the Alan Brady show (and some of you actually think I am young). How great would it be if we could all have coffee, cook lunches, read, write, and bounce ideas? We could be a blog think-tank. I know this is not feasible so the isolation is part of the game at least for the time being.

Social media is not the devil as one of my readers put it. Without it I would have almost no chance to publish, I would never have reconnected with some wonderful people in the world, and I would not have developed and owned a successful travel business in Italy. Social media like alcohol, chocolate, and exercise can be overwhelming and all-consuming and must be consumed in moderation.

Perhaps I have been a bit all-consumed and at the same time I was recently bored out of my skull and wandering aimlessly towards my perceptions of joy without putting in the work. Being alone for a showman level of extrovert like me is misery. At the same time, I refuse to believe that it is not a misery of habit. I am willing and making strides to change my capacity to function without needing to periodically show off in the company of colleagues. What am I saying? I need this time to suffer and cocoon.

I will return to the stage and I will long for the time alone. I know this intrinsically. What I am doing now will lead me once again to a place where I am tethered to a public expectation. This is what I want. I want to be an entertainer and story teller. I want to be on television and selling out readings around the country. This is a lofty goal but the only one that gets me through the muck. I know this nesting space will not last and I have found it far more productive to not attempt a two front war.

What I mean by this is: I have never managed to succeed trying to do multiple things to a level of excellence. Now, my focus is to write and all the associated components. I considered returning to a simple position in a wine shop or consulting for another restaurant. However, I am not one to do a job any way other than to excel. To excel takes time and there are only 24 hours in a day. In addition, wine and travel jobs require require action and I am so easily distracted by action and especially if I am "needed". It has been so hard to realize I am not needed and at the same time it has been liberating.

I used to wake up every hour through the night checking my phone for work related emails. Those days are gone and my phone sits on my desk in another room with the ringer silenced so that I may sleep soundly and dream freely in order to create each day.

I have some amazing close friends and a wonderfully supportive family. I am of the belief that if I am your friend nothing will change that. I can see you every week or once in 10 years and to me we will simply roll right back in without missing a beat. Being a connector personality I do my best to keep my friends at no greater than arm's length; however, this is not everyone's view and some people will come and go as they will.

I now know that once again, I am not all alone in my thoughts as the amazing WordPress community showed me yesterday. I take great responsibility for what I publish here. I take your comments as loving and supportive of fellow writers and friends. I will answer all of your comments from yesterday at some point today.

For now, I may go get a cup of coffee and watch the world.

Famous Guest Blogger - Letter to the Author

Rich, the anti-eponymous author of the wildly popular blog brainsorts expressed to me after my stats complaining post the other day that he would gladly take credit for putting my blog on the map and being the supporter that would get me eventually published.

Of course, I challenged him to explain that in detail to my audience which he has so masterfully done with this short piece I am publishing today. I don't think even my Mom gets me like Rich. This glowing piece of work here depicts me in a light that not even the back of my hand could understand.

OK, I need to share a little bit about my guest author (although I know most of the folks here know him better than I)

When Rich isn't busy cruising the Gravatars of attractive ladies on my blog he can be found hawking several exceptional pieces of fiction on his blog that currently (and I mean this in the sense of the short-term) are FREE. Here are some links to his excellent prose: The Curse - Room 317 - Lizzie's Journal

Rich is also an accomplished grammarian so be careful where you (mis)place your modifiers and what part(iciple)s you leave dangling because Rich might get irate and start diagramming your ass!

Cheers to you Rich and your dry as a dessert wit. (typo intended)

The Letter

When I first met Michael, he was lying face down near a puddle of vomit that I had first mistake for blood. I had rarely felt more concern, but I was greatly relieved when I realized it actually was blood and not another good Cabernet that he had emptied. I sat him up, slapped him a few times, and realized he was a lot shorter than I thought. I knew that water can sometimes stave off a hangover, so I quickly drank the last of the Aquafina that was in the fridge and wondered if he had finished off the meatloaf. Luckily, he hadn’t, but the roaches were working on it.

I looked around his dusty apartment and wondered what circumstances had befallen such a formerly nice, young man. Was it the week in Key West without sunscreen? The part-time job pulling rickshaws in Venice? Or maybe it was me? Maybe I just hadn’t done enough to guide my younger brother Michael. Not Michael Housewright, but really, I have a younger brother Michael.

I was startled when he slid over to one elbow and looked up with one eye, and then spoke with one syllable. “Flen.” That’s when I knew he had hit rock bottom. I recalled our first stay in theater class in Texas. I was sitting up front with a new notebook, and he proudly walked through the door to the front of the room. You could tell he’d just gotten a new haircut because he still had some fresh clippings on his collar. I tried not to laugh, but the word “clippings” alone is cause for a chuckle now and then. But the laughs couldn’t be suppressed as he turned to the side of the oak desk, reached for the trash can, and emptied it into the larger bin he was rolling down the hall of the humanities building. On his way out he turned and motioned for me to step into the hallway.

He looked over my shoulder and behind his own, looked at me very seriously, and said, “Flen.”

“Huh?”

“Flen. It’s code.”

“Really? For what?”

“It means done. Finished. No more. It means help me because I can’t take anymore.”

“Why are you telling me this?” I asked.

“Because the semester ended last week and classes are flen. You oughta go home.”

I realized right then that I gained more from this fresh-cut janitor than I had from Professor Mumphry the entire semester. I knew right then that someday we’d be touring the country together as a vaudeville team. Looking back, I realize I was only half right. You see, there’s no “I” in “team,” but there are four in “ indiscriminate.” We were not a team, and we could never be a team because with his love of pastels, I could never wear the same uniform. But we were indiscriminate. Just ask his former housekeeper, but whatever you do, don’t ask her how she got the limp.

When I see what he’s accomplished and how far he’s come since that day. No, not that day, the other one. Well, both I guess. But when I think about it, I get teary. I mean, just thinking of how he loves onions, the burning and the flashbacks, you just never forget that. I like the Spanish onions though. Michael, being from the south; well, only white onions for him. But seriously, look at him now. Okay, dim the lights if you have to, but look at him. Not directly, I mean just think of a summary of his accomplishments. Sorry. Accomplishment. Who would have believed that a trash collecting guy from a Texas liberal arts college would one day use the World Wide Web to beg people to pay attention to him? He was right to ignore me when I tried to talk him out of the billboards. “Too small,” he said. And I can admit it. He was right.

In closing, I can only find one accurate word that sums up how I feel towards him. Jealousy. I’m full of it. No, not jealousy. Just in general. I’m full of it. I’m full of his bragging about his European adventures, his wine-guzzling nights, his thumbing rides across Germany just to see men in lederhosen. I’m full of his claims that he started a travel company when he was actually just carrying my bags from one hotel to the next. So go, Michael. Go and prove it. If you’re going to claim this was all your idea, then prove it. Keep in mind something, there’s a video surveillance camera in that dorm we shared when we were planning all this. I’ve reviewed every discussion, all the notes we took, and how many times you claimed a pizza only had seven slices while you held one behind your back. Didn’t think I noticed that, did you?

There’s a lot you don’t know, Michael. But there’s a lot I don’t know either. Like, how that pig got in your room that night after finals and why he was wearing lederhosen. I have two words for you, buddy. “Flen.”

You think about that for a while.